Judge recommends against dismissing charges against Y-12 protesters

A federal magistrate judge has recommended against dismissal of charges against three protesters who entered property of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge.

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By The Associated Press

Oakridger - Oak Ridge, TN

By The Associated Press

Posted Jan. 4, 2013 at 4:55 PM
Updated Jan 4, 2013 at 4:56 PM

By The Associated Press

Posted Jan. 4, 2013 at 4:55 PM
Updated Jan 4, 2013 at 4:56 PM

A federal magistrate judge has recommended against dismissal of charges against three protesters who entered property of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge.

The recommendation is contained in a newly released report by Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley Jr.

Attorneys for Greg Boertje-Obed, Michael Walli and Megan Rice argued in a Nov. 20 motion hearing for dismissal of charges against their clients. The hearing came before a superseding indictment was returned, elevating charges against the protesters.

The protesters have repeatedly said that on July 28, they cut through fences to reach the storage facility for weapons-grade uranium, splashing human blood onto it. However they claim the work at the plant is illegal under U.S. and international law.

Defense attorneys argued that work at Y-12 constitutes a war crime.

“Basically,” Shirley wrote in his report, “it strikes the court that the defendants seek the dismissal ... because they contend that some other group or entity — either those operating Y-12 or perhaps the United States government — is committing a separate and distinct crime, which they describe as the production, storage, or threatened use of nuclear weapons.”

The protesters will appeal Shirley’s recommendation, said defense team member William Quigley on Thursday. Quigley is a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans.

Shirley also found the defendants had no legal standing to challenge U.S. policy on nuclear weapons because “the propriety of nuclear weapons is a political and, therefore, non-justiciable questions.” Individual citizens cannot litigate “generalized grievance” such as this, he said.

In his recommendation, Shirley wrote that possession of nuclear weapons doesn’t signal an intent to use them and likened it to a junkyard owner posting a “mean dog” sign.

Quigley didn’t like the comparison.

“I think the characterization of nuclear weapons as not a threat to the peace but more like a junkyard dog will come back to bite the government in the end,” he said.